“Thank you, my dear child,” went on the
little old lady. “If you would be so kind
as to reach me down a stem of goldenrod, I would be
very much obliged to you.”

“What do you want with it?” asked Susie,
wondering who the little old lady could possibly be.

“Why, I want it for a fairy wand,” she
answered. “I have lost mine.”

“Are you a fairy, too?” asked the little
rabbit girl, and she began to wonder what would happen
next as she broke off a stem for the old lady.

“Indeed I am,” replied the little old
lady. “I am a fairy godmother. I have
charge of all the other fairies, the blue fairy and
the red fairy and the green fairy, and all the other
colors, including the fairy prince, who used to be
a mud turtle.”

“But, if you are a fairy,” asked Susie,
“why couldn’t you make that goldenrod
come down to you, when you weren’t tall enough
to reach up to it?”

“Hush!” exclaimed the fairy godmother,
for she really was one, as you shall see. “Hush,
my dear child! It’s a great secret.
Don’t tell any one,” and she put her right
hand over her mouth and her left hand over her ear,
and held the goldenrod under her arm. “You
see, I lost my magic wand,” she went on, “and
I couldn’t do any more magic until I got a new
one. Now I am all right, and to reward you you
may come with me.”

“But I have to get home with the bread and sugar
and yeast cake,” said Susie.

“No,” spoke the fairy godmother, “you
will not need to be in a hurry. Besides, what
I will show you will happen in an instant, and you
will get home in time after all.”

So she waved the goldenrod in the air, and once more
the silver trumpet sounded: “Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra!”
and, all of a sudden, Susie found herself lifted up,
and there she and the fairy godmother were sailing
right through the air on a big burdock leaf.
At first Susie was afraid, but she soon got over her
fright and enjoyed the ride.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We are going to where the fairies live,”
answered the little old woman, but she seemed larger
now, and the old dress she had worn had changed into
a cloak of gold and silver with diamonds and rubies
on it all over, like frost on a cold morning.

So pretty soon—­oh, I guess in about as
long as it would take to eat a peanut, or, maybe,
two, if they didn’t come to fairyland. At
least that’s what Susie thought it was, for
there were fairies all about. The red fairy was
there, and the green, and the blue one. And the
blue fairy asked: “Have you your ring yet,
Susie?” Then Susie said she had, but she didn’t
want to talk any more, for so many wonderful things
were going on.

The fairies were skipping about, leaping here and
there, some riding on the backs of birds and butterflies
and bumblebees, and some running in and out of holes
in the ground.